Monday, June 26, 2006

This is weird. I get an email from Bernat today announcing their new cotton line:

http://www.bernat.com/newsletters/summer2006web.html

Now I recently bought some wild cotton colors, and guess what? These are the same colors as the Sugar 'n Cream I just bought. Not only the same colors, but THE SAME COLOR NAMES. I don't forget names like Beach Ball Blue and Creamsicle.

I wonder how much they're selling it for. Wonder if there was a merger of some sort? Hmmm...

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

This is the rest of Mother's Day that I have finished. I have one more washcloth to go. My mom, my grandmother, Joe's mom, and his grandmother all got or will get the same gift. A felted bowl, a Mason Dison warshrag, and a bar of handmade (not by me) soap. My mom and grandmother got theirs on Mother's Day. I haven't seen any of Joe's folks, so I have to get them theirs when I see them.

I have a second skein of the brown yarn plied. I went to the once-a-month spinning meeting in Huntsville Monday night. It was pretty good. I met some nice (and funny!) people. One was knitting a MD warshrag.

I haven't started anything new, except for a leaf pattern scarf thingy from some wool that Ernie brought me back from Germany. It is a bright green cabled yarn that she thought was 100% wool, but it sure doesn't look/feel like it. It does say 'wolle' on it, though. But I don't know German, so that could mean 'yarn' for all I know. I really like it, and it's not a color I would have ever bought, so I consider that a bonus.

I haven't returned to the Sweater-From-You-Know-Where-With-the-Very-Bad-Instructions yet. Still debating on the sleeves. I need to find some quiet time where I'm going to be stuck somewhere for a while before I pick them back up.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

I have been semi-productive. My aunt & uncle were down from Ohio for a few days, so we spent a lot of time at my mom's.

I FINISHED OISIE'S SOCKS!!!

The rib & cable socks from the Fall 2005 Interweave Knits are done. And they look and feel spiffy. I finished them at my mom's and gave them to my grandmother as soon as I was finished, so no pictures, but I had previously posted pics of the one finished sock; the other one looks just like it.

Recently I have spent a lot of time spinning some brown wool into three bobbins of singles. Last night I finished filling the third bobbin, so I spent a little while this morning turning some of this:

into this:

(the color appears truer in the picture of the bobbins). My first true three-ply! I have only navaho plied to get a thicker yarn before. The color variations are subtle but pretty. I am pleased with how even it is, but it's still pretty fine.

Yesterday I got to do my Mother's Day shopping. We went to Little Barn first, where I found something I'd been eyeing online for a while - recycled silk!

The sock yarn was inexpensive and I seem to have a strange compulsion to buy sock yarn, so I also came home with this:

But I really went there for the fiber. I needed more to spin. This time, I went for quantity over quality. It's all good quality, but next time I might spend more on some really nice fiber. This is what I got:

the two larger spindles at the top and the four balls of fiber. The big ball is dyed top that looked more icy blue until I got it home and saw it was pale lavender. The mixed is a remnant of some of their specialty blends. The blue & pink have sparkly fibers in them. Thought it might be fun drop spindle wool.

From there, we went to Yarn Expressions. I needed this:

to finish Mother's Day presents (felted bowls from the 'One Skein' book). And I decided I was going to buy this:

after debating it and wanting it for a while. People make a fuss over it, but it's almost $12 for a little bitty skein! But I broke down and got it. Now I have to figure out what to do with it.

I also got a pattern that I have been wanting to use in a scarf with the Lush yarn I bought a couple of months ago. I've decided the three balls will be a scarf and fingerless gloves for me.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Yay! I have dry yarn. I was a little worried about how the pink/purple would look knit up once I saw it in balls:

But I think it looks fine knitted:

I was guessing I would need a US 9 or 10 needle, but I had an 11 handy. It was too big. So I grabbed a 9. It was too small. The fabric with a 9 is a little stiff. So I will eventually be doing swatches with 10's and 10.5's.

The narrow strip is on size 11, the wide strip is with 9's:

The yellow came out nice, too. It has some variations in the intensity of the color, which is good. I think it looks better than all solid the same exact shade:

That's on 8's. I think the knitting might look better on a smaller needle, but then it would be too stiff.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

I love dyeing so much! It's almost impossible to screw up, because when you do, you can just dye over it. I began by mixing half the dye, two packs to about 16 oz. of water:

Once I started pouring, I saw the dyes were going to mix hopelessly, so I omitted the yellow. I mixed & used the second half of the Kook-Aid. I poured, wrapped in saran wrap, and microwaved. THINGS DID NOT GO LIKE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO. First of all, there was way too much liquid, and the saran wrap didn't seem to hold any in. Actually, it didn't seem to hold the yarn in either. Maybe it was supposed to be 8 oz of water for four packs of Kool-Aid. Hmm.

The pink wasn't bright at all, and I gave up on the microwave:

Once I hung them up, though, they didn't look as bad. The pink even looked okay. I did make sure the water was clear before hanging them up so the dye didn't migrate any more.

I had a small bit of shetland wool that I used with the yellow. I thought maybe part of the problem with the first lot was the wool had too much water in it, so I took the lazy way out and didn't wet it first. It sucked up all the color without even microwaving, but I hung it in the sun to dry just to be safe.

The good thing about having the summer off? No one cares if I didn't wear gloves! My left hand is bright, dark red-violet on the inside, and the outside is kind of scary, too:

Lots of things going on - didn't get to go on my weekend trip due to car failure. Luckily, that is resolved. Luckily, it didn't cost as much as the original estimate. Unluckily, it still cost. Anyhow, want to see what a sweater looks like after it has been untagged, unseamed, unraveled, wound on the ball winder, and then wound on the swift?

My oh-so-intelligent two year old pointed out that it looks like ramen noodles:

Since I've got to wet it & weight it to get rid of the kinks, I might as well dye it, too! This is what is happening to it next:

I had intended to pair the colors - pink & yellow and red & purple, but after reading more I am not sure I will have enough kool-aid for the whole lot of yarn. Maybe pink to yellow to red to purple and let them make a little orange where they overlap? Hmmm. As soon as Miss Priss's TV show is over, we are gonna have some FUN! Dyeing clothes on, everyone!

As promised:

This is the decent and semi-decent yarn side. It faces my big green monster chair. The shelves near the bottom are literally crammed tight with yarn. There is more room at the top as I am still organizing. Not done yet. But I have got enough cleaned out that I could get to my fiber. It is in a short plastic drawer unit behind the recliner, with my lazy kate & spindles on top (and my Spin-Off magazines). Now that I can get to my stuff, I have actually been spinning! The almost full bobbin on the wheel is from the past 3 days.

The other side of the yarn cubby:

This side is for acrylic and crappy yarn. And half-finished projects from acrylic.

My loom is finally in the room where it will live:

Knitted Objects On Which I Have Made Progress:

This is the Sweater With the Bad Instructions. I am not allowing pictures of the soon-to-be-frogged sleeve into cyberspace. I took pictures; trust me, they're bad.

Sock one of two:

I have so many projects going and so many that I want to start. I bought a couple of patterns for Miss Priss and some cute fabric, but not today. Dyeing awaits! And since this is a knitting blog, here is the ubiquitous cat photo, showing what is waiting for me outside: